Mobile communications technology is rapidly advancing the exchange of information between users and systems. The user is no longer tied to a stationary device such as a personal computer in order to quickly message another user. Portable wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants), for example, are becoming more robust with respect to messaging capabilities.
Along with these rapid advances is the need to provide billing and payment services. Mobile carriers can employ a number of different methodologies in conventional use such as standard practices of paying by mail, web-based electronic payment schemes that require user interaction with a web page and by interactive voice response (IVR) systems that provide user selections to retrieve subscriber data and initiate payment, for example. With the advent of the Internet, and convergence of mobile networks with access to IP services of the Internet, greater opportunities now exist for providing more efficient and less costly means for account access and payment. Customers can view account balance information and minute balance information via the Internet, and WAP (wireless access protocol), which is a carrier-independent, transaction-oriented protocol for wireless data networks. However, such systems can require that the subscriber be online, and the navigation to the minute and balance information is cumbersome with these systems.
In one survey, the top three reasons customers contact a customer care representative and/or the customer care IVR system are to find out an outstanding balance, the remaining minutes on the mobile plan, and/or to pay the bill. Given the enormous number of mobile users today, call center representatives today can easily handle thousands of requests for bill payment per hour and the IVR system can easily be tasked to handle an equal number per hour. This typically equates to millions of requests per month for the IVR system and hundreds of thousands of requests per month to be handled by call center representatives from customers wanting to check their minute balance. This places an enormous expense on the carrier which is then passed down, to some extent, in additional fees and charges to the subscriber base. This information alone shows that customers want to know how many minutes they have remaining, how much they owe, and also want a fast easy way to pay their bill.
Accordingly, there exists a demand for improved customer care capability in the mobile wireless regime that lowers the costs of the carrier for customer care and enhances the capability of the subscriber to interact with account information to review billing and make payments.